@chigau #17 – Non-canonically, there has been one: Joanna Lumley played The Doctor in The Curse of the Fatal Death, a charity telethon put on by BBC 1 in 1999. In this show, The Doctor keeps dying and gets played by, among others, Rowan Atkinson and Hugh Grant before Lumley makes her appearance.

I wonder how many people he tried that “Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men” line on before he found some who didn’t respond with “Fuck you, you pretentious asshole. We’re just trying to make a living here.”

Following the link (click on the picture) to the story, it ends with another, ah, point:

Giving the cast something to touch and play with paid dividends. “It allowed them to be eyeballing the triceratops as it approached and for it to physically lick them. Mark Williams [Brian] was feeling quite threatened by that pointy head so close to his sensitive parts!”

Reminds me of forty-foot high killer rats — Cute when seen from, say, Pluto, but rather a bit much up close and intensely personal.

Chigau @17- Matt Smith and Steven Moffatt have both spoken somewhat positively of the idea. Matt said he didn’t expect one for a while, though answering the followup question made it clear that this was because he expected to be there a while. With the current Doctor, and the current showrunner, both being ok with the idea, I’d expect it to happen soonish. I’d guess 12 or 13, the other I’m kind of expecting to be the first non-white Doctor(while technically unconfirmed, it’s well known that black actors have gotten auditions for the role, and the narrative possibility has been confirmed in Sarah Jane Adventures)

There was a line in The Doctor’s Wife put in specifically to establish sex changes through regeneration as a possibility. While the idea has been toyed with in some non-canon material, the Curse of Fatal Death special and one of the Unbound audios, until that episode there was no canon support for this. Though, there was also nothing in canon ruling it out either.

I just say “The Doctor’s Wife” last night so the topic of a female doctor is pretty fresh in my mind. Although mainly I just wish the situation in the episode could have lasted long enough for the cute couple to have a baby.

Ragutis: how about Tilda Swinton? (Not least because she played a wonderfully androgynous Orlando in the film of Virginia Woolf’s novel.)

Stella: assuming Time Lords have gender dysphoria, of course… Steven Moffat wrote The Curse of Fatal Death, which played Joanna Lumley’s regeneration purely for laughs, and it’s doubtful to me that the BBC would think of raising trans* awareness (by way of having a female regeneration) as fit subject matter for the show capable of playing to all age groups of the audience. (And the actor would be cis, inevitably.) Acceptance of trans* people is still rather further behind acceptance of LGB people, who’ve notably benefitted from the so-called Russell T Davies/Steven Moffat gay agenda. Hopefully before too many more regenerations.

There’s been some canonical lines delivered by the current Doctor, both in the regular series and The Sarah Jane Adventures, that suggests that Time Lords can change sex and can change colour. I’m thinking it’s a matter of time until one or both these things comes to pass.

Doctor Who has subtly been breaking boundaries recently. I’m still gobsmacked how it was able to put man-on-man kissing into a prime-time family show with nary a comment from the conservative press. Such is the prestige of the show and the goodwill shown to it by all.

Emma Thompson would be great. I’d like to see Helena Bonham Carter give it a shot.

But Matt Smith is doing a fantastic job, so I hope he doesn’t leave any time soon.

Anyone who likes sci-fi but hasn’t yet seen Matt Smith’s two Doctor Who Christmas specials really ought to go find them on Amazon immediately. They’re awesome. (But don’t watch them on BBC America; they cut parts to fit the 1 hr time slot. You can watch them on Amazon for free if you sign up for a trial of Amazon Prime.)

My first reaction was ugh but then I remembered her in The King’s Speech. She’s good, but when I hear about her my mind goes to the endless, annoying Burton/Bonham-Carter/Depp cooperations and then I have to think about her other works to make it better.

So? Time Lords aren’t exactly bound by normal temporal considerations. He’s already resigned sometime in, as I recall, the 1860’s, and they are now just showing re-runs. His current project is commonly said to be helping NASA film the faked moon landings, albeit there is a rumour he’s now advising The Great Sky Faerie on when the Big Bang should happen…

In certain scenarios, the Doctor can indeed be a murderous, ruthless opponent. Ask the Daleks. Or the Racnoss. Or the Family of Blood. Or indeed, Solomon from the very episode shown in the pic above. ;)

Of course there have been female Time Lords before, going right back to the very first episode. The question is, if Time Lords can change gender, what happens to the foetus of a pregnant Time Lord if she were to die and regenerate as a male?